Howard Garland Lane

Candidate for Nomination for Senator
from the Twenty-first District

Why I Am A Candidate

Republican Voters of the 21st Senatorial District

[Reprinted from a campaign pamphlet ca. 1910]

Howard Garland Lane

My name having been presented to the voters as a candidate, I wish to say that had a candidate been presented by a town which had not had the privilege in recent years, I would not have considered the candidacy. Waiting to be convinced that such was not the case caused my delay in entering the contest.

My town, the second in the District, has had but one senator in eighty years.

While my life is an active business one, I realize that good citizenship has other duties. In view of the above facts and in response to an urgent appeal from this and other towns I gave my consent to become a candidate.

I believe the voters of our district to be intelligent, capable of doing their own thinking and competent to choose their own candidates. I deprecate the fact that some take it upon themselves to act for the people, do their thinking for them and give offices to men of their own selection without regard to fitness and ignoring the wishes of the people.

I believe the Republican party should nominate a candidate affiliated with no special interests who can act upon all measures with his hands absolutely untied.

Being an employer of labor for many years I think I know something cf the problems that confront both employer and employee.

If I am endorsed as your candidate I shall act as to what I consider to be for the best interests of our district and welfare of the the entire State,

HOWARD G. LANE

The Town Committee's Position

In initiating and furthering the candidacy of Mr. Howard G. Lane for senator from the 21st District, the Town Committee of Hampton bases its action on three prime factors. These are herewith presented as briefly as possible, for the earnest consideration of all thinking voters in the 21st district. Our three reasons are:

(1) The excellent qualification of Mr. Howard G. Lane to represent his constituents in the Legislature.

(2) The unquestioned right of each of the several towns in a district to have a proportionate share of the representation in the State Legislature.

(3) The possession within its limits of much property of a semi-public nature, i.e. the great stretch of ocean front where National, State and Town interests merge, requiring the presence in the upper branch of a representative intelligently informed and favorably disposed regarding the development of this vast asset.

Regarding the first of these reasons, Rev. Edgar Warren of Atkinson, writing to the press says:

"In Mr. Howard G. Lane the Republicans of Hampton have a candidate who is in every way qualified to fill the high office of state senator. He is a successful and enterprising young business man. It is becoming increasingly the practice to put business men into office. Looking at it in one way the state is a great business concern, and the same qualities that are needed in the successful prosecution of a private enterprise are needed in the service of the state. The man who successfully conducts a private business would seem to be best qualified to conduct public business.

"Mr. Lane is a man of unimpeachable integrity. For ten years he has been town treasurer of Hampton. Thousands of dollars of town money have passed through his hands, and there is not a penny that is not accounted for. He is a man of independent judgment, reaching his conclusions from what he reads and hears, and not from what some one tells him. If elected he will be the representative of the whole people and not the tool of a clique or faction.

"He is a man of ability, of character, a man of clean life and good habits. He has had legislative experience, representing Hampton in the house in the last legislature. He has always been a Republican."

The second consideration needs no argument. In a country like the United States where the corporate town is the political unit, an equitable representation is had only when each of these units or towns comprising a political division is given the selection of the candidate in frequency proportionate to its voters as compared with the voting strength of the whole district. Hampton, the staunchest Republican town in the Senatorial district, has about one-eleventh of the voting strength of that party and is therefore entitled to one candidate for each eleven sent. She hasn't had one for seventy-five years, while Exeter, morally entitled to about three to Hampton's one, has elected in this period no less than eleven and is seeking to obtain the twelfth. Do you, Mr. Voter, consider this a "square deal ?"

The last of the three reasons is of no little importance. Hampton Beach is the mecca of pleasure seekers from all parts of the state, and is rapidly developing. In this development the state has a large share. Is it not in the interests of all to have in the legislative halls men who, from personal experience know what is required? The coast towns have not received justice from the state in the development of these valuable assets, largely because of the ignorance or indifference in the matter of the Senators who have been elected to represent us. This can be remedied by the nomination of Mr. Lane for the next Senator.